For better or worse, Eagles have sold out on run to stop pass

September 20, 2011|Nick Fierro

"Gap control" only goes so far as an explanation, and it only works when you win, like the Eagles did in their opener on Sept. 11 in St. Louis.

So what if they were gashed for 150-plus yards on the ground and gave up a score on the Rams' first play from scrimmage that night? They shored it up eventually, and they never allowed another touchdown, so no biggie.

But after Sunday night in Atlanta? Not as easy to swallow.

Fans don't want to hear it anymore, don't want to see the Eagles' defensive ends getting sealed off so easily and their undersized linebackers and safeties getting flattened like Looney Tunes characters. Don't want to taste the kind of ghastly defeat they did on that night, after the Eagles had pulled ahead by 10 points going into the fourth quarter.

They'll need to get used to this phenomenon, however.

We'll be hearing a lot more about gap control and the usage of hands from the linebackers and defensive coordinator Juan Castillo this week. The important thing to remember here is that it's all a smokescreen. All of it.

This defense is built to be great against the pass, and the Eagles have made certain concessions in many areas to make that happen.

Generally, they've gone smaller but quicker across the board and tweaked their schemes even more this year to keep opponents from burning them with big plays.

Specifically, they've installed pass-rush specialists such as Jason Babin, Phillip Hunt, Juqua Parker and Darryl Tapp at defensive end. Then they instructed them to line up wider than before to gain a better attack angle on the tackles and tight ends assigned to block them. But in the process, they've created naturally wide gaps inside for opponents to exploit with the run.

That "wide nine" normally would be OK if the team had enough run support among the linebackers and the secondary to compensate.

But in the Eagles' case, they do not. Not since Brian Dawkins departed after the 2008 season have they had anyone beyond defensive end Trent Cole who could be considered a great hitter/tackler. Their linebackers all can run like nobody's business, but they're just not built to be able to handle runs straight at them.

The coaches praised the hammer ability of Temple safety Jaiquawn Jarrett after drafting him last spring, but those compliments stopped soon after the team hit the field at training camp. Jarrett has become a long-term project, at best, in this defense, and likely won't see the field at all this year unless there are some injuries to force it.

Maybe Kurt Coleman breaks into that class this year. But he's still only 5-11, 195 — a Rudy by NFL safety standards.

In the NFL, size matters as much as or more than in the NBA.

Atlanta Falcons running back Michael Turner, for example, is heavier than every one of the six linebackers on the Eagles roster, not to mention their tiny safeties. That he might be a half-step slower than them doesn't matter when the defenders have to use their hands — there's that term again — to first shed 300-pound blockers in order to get a clean shot.

Those blockers are using their hands too. Do the math.

Not surprisingly, the two longest plays against the Eagles this season have been running plays. Turner burned them for a 61-yard run Sunday night to set up the game-winning touchdown. He wasn't even touched until Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie pushed him out of bounds.

The Rams' Steven Jackson, who is the same weight as Turner, only four inches taller (and still bigger than anyone in an Eagles uniform other than a lineman), ran 47 yards for a touchdown on their first play from scrimmage against the Eagles. He wasn't touched at all.

Warning: this is a pattern that will repeat.

"Any play that [opponents] have success on, they're going to align in some way and run the same type of plays," exhausted and traumatized middle linebacker Casey Matthews said minutes after Sunday night's beating. "You can look at plays they had long yards on [us] and try to run them against us."

On the other hand, yielding big yardage in the run game is something the Eagles are extremely prepared to compensate for in other areas. After all, they won one of those games in a romp and would have won the other in the same way if not for quarterback Michael Vick being forced to leave with a concussion.

Locking down the run is something they knew going in that they wouldn't be able to do.

What they weren't counting on was giving up half the field or more on one play and an inept red-zone defense that made last year's hideous squad look like Super Bowl champs.

"We've got to get to the point where no matter what happens, we close the game," linebacker Jamar Chaney said. "That's just point-blank. They had two drives they shouldn't have scored on, and we just have to go out there and make plays. That's the bottom line."

Actually, the bottom line is that the only plays the Eagles are set up to make defensively are in the passing game.

So get used to it. The Eagles still will score a bunch of points and win a bunch of games, but being good against the run will just not happen this season.